Does anyone think that climbing will cause you to lose weight though? I mean it might give you motivation because it's easier to climb when you're lighter, but I think the only real exercise I get while climbing happens on the approach. Maybe speed climbing raelly long routes could get you sweating buckets, but for the most part climbing, especially at the gym is like doing short bursts of work with lots of rest.

Climbing burns a lot of calories. You can easily burn a thousand calories in an intense gym session. I've personally tested this numerous times using a heartrate monitor (that tracks calorie burn), so I know it to be true.

1000 kcal? I doubt it. What exactly were you doing? At what grade? And for what duration?

Jay

This was a year ago, but according to some notes that I was able to locate, I averaged around 500kC for an hour long bouldering session, during which I typically bouldered superset style, meaning that I minimized rest. The grades were all sub V2.

However, I logged some route climbing sessions in the range of 70-100 minutes, during which I believe I probably climbed around 200 or more vertical feet, alternating between stuff at my limit and easier stuff(between 5.6 and 5.9+). I weighed just under 200lbs at that point.

The heartrate monitor that I was using was calibrated in the sense that I compared its results for normal cardio activites (biking, running, swimming, jumping rope, etc) with data available in established tables for the activities, and it was always quite accurate.

So while, clearly, 1000kC is not going to be a common number for a climbing session, for a male weighing over 200lbs, a long and intense session (climbing until the forearms grip no more) is going to take you to the 1000kC range.

It would be interesting to see other people's results. If anyone else here has a heartrate monitor, spend 2 hours in the gym lapping easy climbs, mixed in with some hard climbs, while tracking your calories burned, and post the results!

It has been repeatedly shown that heart rate overestimates the actual energy expenditure in rock climbing,¹ so, if by your heart rate monitor, you burned 1000 kcal, then you actually burned less, although I don't know what the magnitude of the difference would be. One could probably estimate it from the literature.

In any case, my point was that climbing can produce a substantial calorie burn (even 400kC for an hour of activity would be substantial), and that climbing, in combination with other exercise and a strategic diet, helped me to lose over 10lbs. This was in response to an assertion that climbing is not a substantial calorie burning activity, which experience tells me is wrong.

Also, whether the OP is male or female, keeping your net caloric intake under 2000 is a reasonable guideline for weight loss

Uh, no. For a large male who is fairly active and exercises regularly <2000 calories is not enough. Saying it is is simply spewing numbers without any evidence. Why bring numbers into it when they very well may be wrong, and when they aren't needed?

As for the dairy thing, go look at the food group with the next highest calcium content. Now look at how much of it you need to consume to get your daily intake. I'll sit here and wait till you realize how wrong you were.

Yeah, 1/3 of the population is lactose intolerant, but almost all of them are aware of that and I don't think a post on the internet is going to change their mind about lactose intake.

You might have a point about their "GI health" though, because that totally exists, and all dairy products have the same GI, and it is a bad GI for your GI health.

I said it before and I will say it again; Original poster, get your nutrition advice from a sound source. As I said before Glenn Cardwell's "Gold Medal Nutrition" is excellent, but there are many others ("Racing Weight" by Matt Fitzgerald is great).

Seriously, you can listen to people bicker about this stuff on the internet all day (I am just waiting for someone to say something about "the dairy board" having the nutrition world in their pocket - there is no nutrition outside the USA) the best place to get your information is from a trustworthy source.

And seriously, what is wrong with having sugar in your diet? Too much sugar is bad, yes, but there is nothing wrong (indeed plenty of good - for example aiding muscle recovery/glycogen replacement during a rest in exercise) in having sugar as part of your diet.

So sure, there is no absolute need for taking them out of your diet, but why the fuck would you? There is definitely no need to take them out. If you're going to use pills as a main source of vitamins etc. then you are going to need a lot more information then the OP clearly has.

Do you honestly think that the OP would benefit from cutting out sugar and dairy? Seriously?

It's late, and I am pretty sure there are waayyy more brackets then there needed to be up there.

Also, whether the OP is male or female, keeping your net caloric intake under 2000 is a reasonable guideline for weight loss

Uh, no. For a large male who is fairly active and exercises regularly <2000 calories is not enough. Saying it is is simply spewing numbers without any evidence. Why bring numbers into it when they very well may be wrong, and when they aren't needed?

As for the dairy thing, go look at the food group with the next highest calcium content. Now look at how much of it you need to consume to get your daily intake. I'll sit here and wait till you realize how wrong you were.

Yeah, 1/3 of the population is lactose intolerant, but almost all of them are aware of that and I don't think a post on the internet is going to change their mind about lactose intake.

You might have a point about their "GI health" though, because that totally exists, and all dairy products have the same GI, and it is a bad GI for your GI health.

I said it before and I will say it again; Original poster, get your nutrition advice from a sound source. As I said before Glenn Cardwell's "Gold Medal Nutrition" is excellent, but there are many others ("Racing Weight" by Matt Fitzgerald is great).

Seriously, you can listen to people bicker about this stuff on the internet all day (I am just waiting for someone to say something about "the dairy board" having the nutrition world in their pocket - there is no nutrition outside the USA) the best place to get your information is from a trustworthy source.

And seriously, what is wrong with having sugar in your diet? Too much sugar is bad, yes, but there is nothing wrong (indeed plenty of good - for example aiding muscle recovery/glycogen replacement during a rest in exercise) in having sugar as part of your diet.

So sure, there is no absolute need for taking them out of your diet, but why the fuck would you? There is definitely no need to take them out. If you're going to use pills as a main source of vitamins etc. then you are going to need a lot more information then the OP clearly has.

Do you honestly think that the OP would benefit from cutting out sugar and dairy? Seriously?

It's late, and I am pretty sure there are waayyy more brackets then there needed to be up there.

First of all, CALM DOWN; you are far too angry and aggressive in what should be a collaborative discussion.

Substantively: I said NET calories, which means that you eat more if you exercise. Net caloric intake= calories consumed minus calories burned from exercise. If you are trying to lose weight (and therefore need a caloric deficit) then sticking to under 2000 NET calories is a prefectly reasonable guideline for most of the population.

Second, I never said that sugar is categorically bad; I only said that it is not needed in the human diet. This remains true. I personally consume sugar in various forms all the time, and a healthy diet (and weight-loss plan) can include sugar, but it need not.

Lastly, while many dairy products are very low in lactose, dairy is not necessary. I personally eat Greek yogurt regularly, because it has almost no lactose, but again, it is simply not necessary. I maintain that it is easy enough to get adequate calcium without dairy; also, what is wrong with calcium and othe supplements?

Also, whether the OP is male or female, keeping your net caloric intake under 2000 is a reasonable guideline for weight loss

Uh, no. For a large male who is fairly active and exercises regularly <2000 calories is not enough. Saying it is is simply spewing numbers without any evidence. Why bring numbers into it when they very well may be wrong, and when they aren't needed?

As for the dairy thing, go look at the food group with the next highest calcium content. Now look at how much of it you need to consume to get your daily intake. I'll sit here and wait till you realize how wrong you were.

Yeah, 1/3 of the population is lactose intolerant, but almost all of them are aware of that and I don't think a post on the internet is going to change their mind about lactose intake.

You might have a point about their "GI health" though, because that totally exists, and all dairy products have the same GI, and it is a bad GI for your GI health.

I said it before and I will say it again; Original poster, get your nutrition advice from a sound source. As I said before Glenn Cardwell's "Gold Medal Nutrition" is excellent, but there are many others ("Racing Weight" by Matt Fitzgerald is great).

Seriously, you can listen to people bicker about this stuff on the internet all day (I am just waiting for someone to say something about "the dairy board" having the nutrition world in their pocket - there is no nutrition outside the USA) the best place to get your information is from a trustworthy source.

And seriously, what is wrong with having sugar in your diet? Too much sugar is bad, yes, but there is nothing wrong (indeed plenty of good - for example aiding muscle recovery/glycogen replacement during a rest in exercise) in having sugar as part of your diet.

So sure, there is no absolute need for taking them out of your diet, but why the fuck would you? There is definitely no need to take them out. If you're going to use pills as a main source of vitamins etc. then you are going to need a lot more information then the OP clearly has.

Do you honestly think that the OP would benefit from cutting out sugar and dairy? Seriously?

It's late, and I am pretty sure there are waayyy more brackets then there needed to be up there.

First of all, CALM DOWN; you are far too angry and aggressive in what should be a collaborative discussion.

Substantively: I said NET calories, which means that you eat more if you exercise. Net caloric intake= calories consumed minus calories burned from exercise. If you are trying to lose weight (and therefore need a caloric deficit) then sticking to under 2000 NET calories is a prefectly reasonable guideline for most of the population.

Second, I never said that sugar is categorically bad; I only said that it is not needed in the human diet. This remains true. I personally consume sugar in various forms all the time, and a healthy diet (and weight-loss plan) can include sugar, but it need not.

Lastly, while many dairy products are very low in lactose, dairy is not necessary. I personally eat Greek yogurt regularly, because it has almost no lactose, but again, it is simply not necessary. I maintain that it is easy enough to get adequate calcium without dairy; also, what is wrong with calcium and othe supplements?

We aren't all friends here. I've never met you, nor has anyone else. Honestly, Jay and Sungam weren't all that rough with you, especially as your advice isn't all that great. There are a ton of diets that cut out foods you "don't need" floating around out there. Just because people use them doesn't make them great.

It is cool that you have an opinion, but people are going to disagree with you. Get used to it.

Also, whether the OP is male or female, keeping your net caloric intake under 2000 is a reasonable guideline for weight loss

Uh, no. For a large male who is fairly active and exercises regularly <2000 calories is not enough. Saying it is is simply spewing numbers without any evidence. Why bring numbers into it when they very well may be wrong, and when they aren't needed?

As for the dairy thing, go look at the food group with the next highest calcium content. Now look at how much of it you need to consume to get your daily intake. I'll sit here and wait till you realize how wrong you were.

Yeah, 1/3 of the population is lactose intolerant, but almost all of them are aware of that and I don't think a post on the internet is going to change their mind about lactose intake.

You might have a point about their "GI health" though, because that totally exists, and all dairy products have the same GI, and it is a bad GI for your GI health.

I said it before and I will say it again; Original poster, get your nutrition advice from a sound source. As I said before Glenn Cardwell's "Gold Medal Nutrition" is excellent, but there are many others ("Racing Weight" by Matt Fitzgerald is great).

Seriously, you can listen to people bicker about this stuff on the internet all day (I am just waiting for someone to say something about "the dairy board" having the nutrition world in their pocket - there is no nutrition outside the USA) the best place to get your information is from a trustworthy source.

And seriously, what is wrong with having sugar in your diet? Too much sugar is bad, yes, but there is nothing wrong (indeed plenty of good - for example aiding muscle recovery/glycogen replacement during a rest in exercise) in having sugar as part of your diet.

So sure, there is no absolute need for taking them out of your diet, but why the fuck would you? There is definitely no need to take them out. If you're going to use pills as a main source of vitamins etc. then you are going to need a lot more information then the OP clearly has.

Do you honestly think that the OP would benefit from cutting out sugar and dairy? Seriously?

It's late, and I am pretty sure there are waayyy more brackets then there needed to be up there.

First of all, CALM DOWN; you are far too angry and aggressive in what should be a collaborative discussion.

Substantively: I said NET calories, which means that you eat more if you exercise. Net caloric intake= calories consumed minus calories burned from exercise. If you are trying to lose weight (and therefore need a caloric deficit) then sticking to under 2000 NET calories is a prefectly reasonable guideline for most of the population.

Second, I never said that sugar is categorically bad; I only said that it is not needed in the human diet. This remains true. I personally consume sugar in various forms all the time, and a healthy diet (and weight-loss plan) can include sugar, but it need not.

Lastly, while many dairy products are very low in lactose, dairy is not necessary. I personally eat Greek yogurt regularly, because it has almost no lactose, but again, it is simply not necessary. I maintain that it is easy enough to get adequate calcium without dairy; also, what is wrong with calcium and othe supplements?

We aren't all friends here. I've never met you, nor has anyone else. Honestly, Jay and Sungam weren't all that rough with you, especially as your advice isn't all that great. There are a ton of diets that cut out foods you "don't need" floating around out there. Just because people use them doesn't make them great.

It is cool that you have an opinion, but people are going to disagree with you. Get used to it.

Haha, well then. I'm sorry to hear that you don't like being friendly towards strangers; I always try to treat people nicely by default, and as far as I'm concerned, a forum for climbers is a friendly forum by default. Nonetheless, you shouldn't mistake my request for civil dialogue at being sore for being "treated roughly;" while someone's opinion about me in an internet forum is not my top concern, I only posted in this particular thread because I thought that I could contribute to the nutritional dialogue in a way that others might benefit. Whether I'm wrong or right (and to be clear, none of my factual statements were wrong), noone benefits from undue aggression and anger.

Substantively, my "advice" was simply a counterpoint to a criticism being rendered about someone else's advice; a criticism which I thought was a little too categorical and angry. My "advice" is simply that you do not need dairy or sugar in your diet. I was never advising anyone to cut sugar or dairy out of their diet, but simply mentioning that you do not need them in your diet. This is abundantly clear from my posts; I'm pretty sure that Jay understood what I was saying, based on his responses; I don't know if Sungam did, based on his response, but to be clear, that is what I said.

You don't have to believe what someone tells you, but you also don't need to call them names and 'yell' about how wrong you think they are; it's just unhealthy. =)

Substantively: I said NET calories, which means that you eat more if you exercise. Net caloric intake= calories consumed minus calories burned from exercise. If you are trying to lose weight (and therefore need a caloric deficit) then sticking to under 2000 NET calories is a prefectly reasonable guideline for most of the population.

That's utterly ludicrous.

In reply to:

Lastly, while many dairy products are very low in lactose, dairy is not necessary. I personally eat Greek yogurt regularly, because it has almost no lactose, but again, it is simply not necessary. I maintain that it is easy enough to get adequate calcium without dairy . . .

If it's so easy, then how come almost nobody does?

The adult US RDA for calcium is 1000 or 1200 mg/d, depending on age. In 2003, groundbreaking research showed that the average non-vegetarian American obtains an estimated 771 mg/d of calcium, of which 297 mg/d comes from dairy products. Based on data in that paper, assuming a normal distribution, only 25% of Americans meet even the lower standard. Pick a random American and remove the dairy products from their diet (which is basically what photongirl was doing), and the probability that they will meet even the lower RDA drops to less than 6%.

Substantively: I said NET calories, which means that you eat more if you exercise. Net caloric intake= calories consumed minus calories burned from exercise. If you are trying to lose weight (and therefore need a caloric deficit) then sticking to under 2000 NET calories is a prefectly reasonable guideline for most of the population.

That's utterly ludicrous.

In reply to:

Lastly, while many dairy products are very low in lactose, dairy is not necessary. I personally eat Greek yogurt regularly, because it has almost no lactose, but again, it is simply not necessary. I maintain that it is easy enough to get adequate calcium without dairy . . .

If it's so easy, then how come almost nobody does?

The adult US RDA for calcium is 1000 or 1200 mg/d, depending on age. In 2003, groundbreaking research showed that the average non-vegetarian American obtains an estimated 771 mg/d of calcium, of which 297 mg/d comes from dairy products. Based on data in that paper, assuming a normal distribution, only 25% of Americans meet even the lower standard. Pick a random American and remove the dairy products from their diet (which is basically what photongirl was doing), and the probability that they will meet even the lower RDA drops to less than 6%.

Jay

What's ludicrous about the concept of net caloric intake? It's the basis of almost any modern diet.

I eat 3000 calories, I burned 1000 during exercise; my net caloric intake is 2000 for that day. If I would normally burn 2500 calories per day from my base metabolic rate and minimal activity, and I burned an excess of 1000 calories from exercise, then I burned 3500 calories that day; since I only took in 3000, I have a deficit of 500 calories, which is a healthy weight loss deficit. This is uncontested, standard stuff here; I don't see the problem?

As far as calcium, take a supplement, problem solved. Drink fortified orange juice, soy milk, or other beverages. Take two tums every day. How hard is that? If you REALLY don't want to supplement, then eat soy products and leafy greens. Tofu can have up to 600mg of calcium per cup, depending on the type of tofu, and leafy greens (depending on variety) have from around 100 to 300 mg per cup of calcium. 3 or 4 cups of any of those in a day and you are well within your calcium requirements.

Substantively: I said NET calories, which means that you eat more if you exercise. Net caloric intake= calories consumed minus calories burned from exercise. If you are trying to lose weight (and therefore need a caloric deficit) then sticking to under 2000 NET calories is a prefectly reasonable guideline for most of the population.

That's utterly ludicrous.

In reply to:

Lastly, while many dairy products are very low in lactose, dairy is not necessary. I personally eat Greek yogurt regularly, because it has almost no lactose, but again, it is simply not necessary. I maintain that it is easy enough to get adequate calcium without dairy . . .

If it's so easy, then how come almost nobody does?

The adult US RDA for calcium is 1000 or 1200 mg/d, depending on age. In 2003, groundbreaking research showed that the average non-vegetarian American obtains an estimated 771 mg/d of calcium, of which 297 mg/d comes from dairy products. Based on data in that paper, assuming a normal distribution, only 25% of Americans meet even the lower standard. Pick a random American and remove the dairy products from their diet (which is basically what photongirl was doing), and the probability that they will meet even the lower RDA drops to less than 6%.

Jay

What's ludicrous about the concept of net caloric intake? It's the basis of almost any modern diet.

I eat 3000 calories, I burned 1000 during exercise; my net caloric intake is 2000 for that day. If I would normally burn 2500 calories per day from my base metabolic rate and minimal activity, and I burned an excess of 1000 calories from exercise, then I burned 3500 calories that day; since I only took in 3000, I have a deficit of 500 calories, which is a healthy weight loss deficit. This is uncontested, standard stuff here; I don't see the problem?

Oh, sorry. You did write burned from exercise. I missed that. I thought you were advocating a caloric deficit of 2000 kcal/day.

In reply to:

As far as calcium, take a supplement, problem solved. Drink fortified orange juice, soy milk, or other beverages. Take two tums every day. How hard is that? If you REALLY don't want to supplement, then eat soy products and leafy greens. Tofu can have up to 600mg of calcium per cup, depending on the type of tofu, and leafy greens (depending on variety) have from around 100 to 300 mg per cup of calcium. 3 or 4 cups of any of those in a day and you are well within your calcium requirements.

I have no problem with the concept of calcium supplements, but I would recommend them for anyone who avoids dairy. Look at the data: even with dairy, few people consume enough calcium. Without dairy, far fewer will. The facts show that it is "hard" to do in practice, no matter how "easy" you make it sound in a forum post.

I agree that if you are not consuming dairy, you must ensure that you are getting adequate calcium from other sources.

If you are consuming dairy, you should try to keep it lean, and of the low-lactose variety if you are like the majority of humanity, who is lactose intolerant to one degree or another. There are plenty of low-fat low-lactose dairy options; my two favorites are kefir and greek yogurt; both have the added benefit of being very high in protein!

Naturally, any advice from an internet forum should be used as a starting point, and any potential advisee should take pains to research the advice/topic more thoroughly. Mayoclinic.com is a good first resource for anyone seeking more knowledge on how to eat a healthy diet, and consulting a nutritionist is always a good thing if you feel totally lost.

Okay, what annoyed me is that the recommendation was made to cut out dairy without the adequate information needed to do so healthily. If the posts had been reasonable and said "Cut out dairy because [?????] but make sure you are still getting your RDA of calcium" then that would have been fine (except there is no reason to). But if someone blindly followed the recommendations in that post they would not have a healthy diet. That is why I didn't like the post.

Also, I think you should not use the term "net calorie intake". No one else seems to, and the term really doesn't make sense at all.